Now we will see if I was right to suggest that the Cubs should have retained Mark Prior. Prior has a $1 million/ 1 year contract with his hometown team, San Diego. I somehow suspect he is very happy with this outcome. Being a Padre means he gets to pitch his home games in Petco, which will help his numbers.
How much the Padres get from Prior is unknown, but for San Diego, this contract was a no-brainer. It will be a long time before a player with this kind of ability is available so cheaply again.
So this year's rotation will be Zambrano, Lilly, Hill, Dempster, Marquis, and possibly Sean Marshall or Kevin Hart. There are enough candidates with potential that it was OK to turn Prior away from the baseball perspective. But after what Prior meant to this team, in 2003, I would have liked to see the Cubs give him another chance, to see how his arm looked after he was done rehabbing this year.
In other news, the Yankees have signed LaTroy Hawkins. So is George Steinbrenner too far gone to stop this type of madness? Yes. LaTroy and demanding fans were not a good mix; the Yankees also failed to learn not to get mid-decade Cub relievers. What, exactly, did Kyle Farnsworth do for New York?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I'm not surprised that the Cubs traded Prior. It didn't seem like he was going to come back as strong as we all hoped he would, so why not let him rehab in his home town for a few years on someone else's dime... then maybe we can bring him back in like we did with Greg Maddux. (d'oh! please don't remind me that Maddux won a WS.. ow! the pain! the pain!).
As far as the Yankees / Latroy thing, perhaps the yankees have finally changed strategies to trump the ex cub factor theory's Yankee exception (search wikipedia for "ex cubs factor") by absorbing them instead of playing against them. That might just get New York over that 7th game series hump they keep running into.
-- 2008! 100 Years or Bust! --
Did the Cubs actually trade Prior? I am pretty sure they just let him become a free agent. It has been a long, painful road as a Cubs fan with Prior and Wood. Everything I've heard about Prior is that he is jerk - so the fact that he is a jerk and wasn't pitching, doesn't leave much to like about him. I am not sad to see him leave but the fact that the Padres landed him for 1 year 1 million, pisses me off. The Cubs should have kept him if they could have had that same deal AND Prior should have let the Cubs have that deal. He's been collecting millions and doing nothing and his potential is still unknown.
If Prior becomes Jake Peavy Jr in Petco, I'm going to be pissed.
Post a Comment